Godwin
\nKelly<\/a>, while citing a source "in the safety industry" makes a good
\npoint: If Bill Simpson knew Dale Earnhardt was using his products incorrectly,
\nwhy did he keep selling them to him? If Earnhardt’s safety was so important, why
\nnot say "Dale, I’ve told you over and over you’re installing my belts
\nwrong. Until you modify the way you install your safety belts, you’ll have to
\nget them from another source."<\/p>\nBut then Kelly, via this anonymous source,
\ntakes a hit at NASCAR. "NASCAR has ignored repeated pleas from the
\nsafety industry to standardize seat belt mounting placements," this
\n"source" says. Well, duh. Is NASCAR supposed to say that each belt
\nwill be mounted at such and such a place, x inches from this post and y inches
\nfrom that post? So Michael Waltrip at over 6 feet and Mark Martin at maybe 5 and
\na half feet have to both fit into the same belt system?<\/p>\n
BELT MOUNTING<\/b>: Saturday I took a
\nstroll through the pits at Nashville Speedway USA. I initially wanted to see how
\nmany drivers were wearing some type of head and neck restraint device. Out
\nof about 100 cars, I probably got to observe the drivers in 60 of them. About 20
\nof those were wearing open-faced helmets. Of the drivers I saw who were wearing
\nfull-faced helmets, three were wearing a neck collar and one was wearing an
\nactual HANS device.<\/p>\n
But after I looked at the headgear, I
\nstarted looking at the backs of the seats to see how the belts were mounted. In
\nevery case (I looked at maybe 20 cars), the shoulder harnesses came up from
\nbeneath a bar behind the seat, through a little bracket on that bar, and then
\nthrough slots in the back of the seat. Some drivers had cut their own
\nslots higher than what had come pre-cut in the seat. <\/p>\n
And then I had an interesting thought:
\nwhat if a shoulder harness came through the seat below the driver’s shoulders?
\nIn a wreck, that would almost certainly cause the driver’s back to be
\ncompressed. If the belts were mounted higher than the shoulders, then the
\ncompression wouldn’t take place.<\/p>\n
To me, that proves that NASCAR has no way
\nof mandating seat belt installation methods or placement…It has<\/i> to be
\ncustomized for each driver.<\/p>\n
TNT<\/b>: Kudos to TNT’s pre-race show
\nSaturday night. When I found out who won the race, I wasn’t going to watch the
\ntape. But then I was told that I needed to watch at least the pre-race show. TNT
\ndid a great job of giving us the different viewpoints regarding the Earnhardt
\ninvestigation. Sadly, Bill Simpson’s paranoia shows up in every statement he
\nmakes. It would be better for him and his legacy if he would just quietly go
\naway; the more he talks, the more his credibility comes in doubt.<\/p>\n
TO THE EGRESS<\/b>: What NASCAR needs to
\ncheck now that everyone seems to be on this head and neck restraint bandwagon is
\nthe drivers’ egress out of the right hand side of the car while they’re wearing
\nthose things. That should be timed
\nand if a driver can’t get out within the time limit, then they fix it or they
\ndon’t qualify.<\/p>\n
BRING BACK THE THREE<\/b>: There are
\nreports that Richard Childress may start running a Number 3 car again next year.
\nGood for him. I’m glad all this nonsense about retiring the number has finally
\nblown over and sanity is making its presence known.<\/p>\n
UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE YEAR NOMINEE<\/b>:
\n"I think Jason [Leffler] probably was in a situation maybe a little sooner
\nthan he should have been." – Chip Ganassi<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
STEWART MAKES SENSE: I’ve done my share of criticizing of Tony Stewart because of his actions on the track after races (and his action in a post race interview Saturday night doesn’t help). But in regards to wearing a head restraint (or not wearing one), he makes a lot of sense. "We know how it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-original-archive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racindeals.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}